Editorial: Require that all gun thefts be reported

Friday

May 30, 2008 at 12:01 AMMay 30, 2008 at 10:15 AM

Following the arrests of Lee Boyd Malvo and John Allen Muhammad in the Beltway sniper shootings in 2002, authorities discovered that the rifle used in the shootings was one of 238 weapons that had mysteriously gone missing in the previous three years from a gun dealer in Washington state.

Following the arrests of Lee Boyd Malvo and John Allen Muhammad in the Beltway sniper shootings in 2002, authorities discovered that the rifle used in the shootings was one of 238 weapons that had mysteriously gone missing in the previous three years from a gun dealer in Washington state.

Last December, 19-year-old Robert Hawkins shot and killed eight people at a mall in Omaha using an assault rifle he had stolen from his mother’s home. She knew her mentally troubled son had taken the gun, but had not reported the weapon as stolen.

Under current Illinois law, gun owners are not required to report lost or stolen firearms to police. For law enforcement, this often means a quick and unsatisfying end to an investigation of the origins of a gun used in a crime. If the weapon’s owner of record, whether a private citizen or a dealer, tells investigators that the gun had been stolen or lost, the investigation is over.

This opens a gaping loophole for unscrupulous gun dealers, who know they can sell to anyone and, if problems arise later, claim the weapon had been stolen from their inventory. It also provides no incentive to individual gun owners to report thefts of guns — though reporting such thefts probably would be instinctive to the vast majority of firearm owners.

A bill in the Illinois House would require that all gun thefts be reported within 72 hours of their discovery. Failure to do so would result in loss of the owner’s FOID card. This bill would give law enforcement a better accounting of firearms on the street after residential burglaries and, more importantly, would give investigators more latitude in questioning dealers whose “lost” merchandise is used in crimes.

“All the original gun owner has to say is, ‘It was stolen,’ and the investigation ends,” says Jennifer Bishop, Chicago-based program director for victims and survivors with the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. “This law would let law enforcement continue questioning the owner.”

A 2000 report by the federal bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms revealed that 57 percent of guns used in crimes in 1998 had been traced back to 1.2 percent of the 83,200 dealers operating that year. The vast majority of gun dealers — 85 percent — had no weapons used in crimes traced back to them. Closing the loophole of non-reported lost or stolen guns, then, would affect only a tiny percentage of dealers.

Any bill dealing with firearms is inherently controversial. They draw out a strong and vocal lobby that frames its opposition in Second Amendment terms.

Already in this legislative session, lawmakers voted down a bill that would have required background checks on private gun transfers.

We can't imagine any responsible firearm owner who would not immediately report a stolen gun when it comes up missing. The same goes for gun dealers. It’s difficult for us to fathom any responsible business with an inventory system so lax that pieces of expensive merchandise simply go unaccounted for until they wind up in a criminal’s hands.

We see this bill — House Bill 2760 — not as a gun control bill but as a responsible ownership bill. We urge the House and Senate to make its passage a priority as this session nears its conclusion.

State Journal-Register

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